Mozilla takes Firefox 17 out of Beta, releases Extended Support Release (ESR) version

Mozilla has finally released Firefox 17 and has made the Extended Support Release (ESR) version available for download on its servers. For those that don't know, ESR is intended to offer the latest Firefox features for use by organizations including schools, universities, businesses and others who need extended support for mass deployments.

Firefox ESR is great for those who want to install Firefox in their organization and have the latest and greatest Firefox features and enhancements but do not want to deal with constantly updating Firefox. The normal version of Firefox will continue to see updates and releases, as well as new features, in a normal manner. This means Mozilla will release Firefox 18 Beta 1 in no time. You can take a look below for a timeline on when Mozilla will release the next ESR version of Firefox and how long the support will last. You can read more about ESR here. As for Firefox 17, there is a new click-to-play blocklisting feature that prevents vulnerable plugin versions from running without the user's permission. On top of that, Firefox 17 features an updated Awesome Bar which now has larger icons. You can check out the source link below for the full release notes or download Firefox 17 ESR below, which is the only version of Firefox 17 available for download at the time of this post.

Update: Firefox 17 for Desktop has also been released. See below for the download link.